Large dairy stripped of organic certification

To start selling cartons labeled as organic again, the company must submit new organic farming plans, fix previous noncompliances, pass inspections with a certifying agent and get final clearance from the USDA, said David Abney, general manager of Quality Assurance International, the San Diego-based firm that inspected the facility.

Experts say the government rarely suspends dairies’ organic certification.

“It’s more than a big slap on the wrist. There are a lot of dairy operations that if (that) happened they would go out of business,” said Daniel Giacomini, a nutritional and management consultant in conventional and certified organic dairy operations.

Vander Eyk has been a target of consumer groups that argue some large factory farms are more likely to keep cows cooped up in pens and drive organic milk prices down, putting smaller family operations at a disadvantage.

But most dairy farmers are not particularly concerned with the size of the facilities, said Ed Maltby, executive director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producer’s Alliance.

“We’re just worried about maintaining the integrity of the organic program,” Maltby said. “We need to ensure that the certifiers are doing their job.”

Kastel’s group filed complaints with the USDA alleging that Vander Eyk and two other large organic dairies confined their cows too much to be considered organic.

Federal regulations don’t specify how much time a cow should spend grazing in a pasture or how many cows can munch on the same acre of grass. But aerial photos of the Vander Eyk dairy showed large, barren feedlots and no pasture, Kastel said.

Consumers may perceive that milk produced by grass-eating cows is of higher quality than conventional dairy products, but they are equal, said Mike Marsh, a spokesman for the Western United Dairymen.

The average gallon of organic milk currently sells for almost double the price of regular milk. But the premium fetched by organic milk has been steadily falling, as conventional milk prices rise and the organic supply increases.

Less than 3 percent of dairies in California are certified organic, but production of organic milk almost doubled in the one-year period beginning April 2006, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

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